Help! Son (13) with severely mental health issues thinks he is trans.

Re flying @Camille2906
one word of warning is that Transactivists - including in English books intended for young children, and in some ‘educational’ curriculums in the U.K. - love to tell children about Robert Cowell who was a racing driver, then a World War 1 pilot, who later became transgender with the name Roberta Cowell.

The flying sounds a very good idea.

Anything real and away from the internet.
He’d be using his mind and body together in coordination and possibly reconnecting the two in a healthy way, and being in the wonderful sky!

Have you asked the expert you mentioned having contacted if this would be good, or for any other suggestions?

You are absolutely trying to do what is best for your son, but tactics are tricky. The flying clubs sounds like a great idea.

It feels like you are so focused on the trans thing that you are losing sight of the most important aim at the moment which is to move him out of a suicidal mindset. Clearly it is key to avoid him starting any hormonal medication but beyond that I think easing up on the interactions with him about clothing, names and detransition people will help. There's a danger that by being so intense with him on these issues will create problems in itself. It is a fine balance, I realise, but it feels like a possible deal to make with him is that as long as hormonal treatment is avoided you will keep an open mind on clothing, names and help him get to being happy. And that the route to being happy is not the same as the route to transition. But he needs to give himself years and years to properly make the right choices.

@Camille2906 I really feel for you in this situation.

I can remember how shocked I was when I learnt that there are men who look for 'eggs to crack' online. 'Cracking eggs' is their slang for - in my own words - brainwashing vulnerable people into believing that they should be the opposite sex. I have read enough from detransitioners and also posts by these 'egg crackers' to know that this is a real and very dangerous thing.

F1NN5TER is an example of this. He started off as a Minecraft YouTuber and the grooming took place in plain sight as he was paid to dress up in female clothes during Twitch streams. It escalated, including Finn being offered 300k to get breast implants for a year by an individual with the username TenMuses (who claimed to be a retired Doctor). Of course, Finn's egg has now been fully cracked, he is on oestrogen and has an OnlyFans.

At the very start, you say she was severely bullied at school. And that you're hostile to her transition.

There's your answer. Dysphoria, bullying and lack of parental support is why trans children develop mental health issues.

Being neurodivergent is not the cause of being trans - it just makes someone far less able to hide who they are.

Support her and watch what happens. If you don't, she will suffer more pain and this will badly affect her exams. And you will eventually lose her, because she won't be able to trust you.

Accepting her will not cure her dysphoria, but it will ease it.

Trans children need their parents to be on their side, because street violence is very real.

The demonisation and vilification of trans people has made them a target for abuse.

If you really did show her porn images (which is what those are) then oh my God, that is not parenting. It's abuse.

Therapy will not work unless you accept her. You are causing her distress, not easing it.

Trans women are normal people.

You must choose between controlling and respecting your child. Then she can heal and get on with the rest of her life.

Yes, it is true that many everyday household objects and substances contain dangerous chemicals that can have negative impact upon our bodies, but this has been true for a lot longer than trans ideology has been around. I've been avoiding many such things as best I can for over 40 years.

Trans ideology arose on american university campuses in the 1990s and has taken off since the introduction of the internet and everyone being glued to social media ever since. Theere were no 'trans kids' even 15 years ago and I know that becaue i was a teacher and nobody had even heard of the concept. We all knew that some older men cross dressed and that some took it even further, though It was still being referred to as being 'a transsexual'. There were certainly not masses of young lesbians declaring they were boys.

The odd kids, or those that were loners or non conformists tended to adopt different clothing fashions and the youth cultures that surrounded them - such as being Emos or Goths. Some were just 'nerdy' and into science, and these days they would very much be into tech and gaming. Some children are nascently gay.....and this has always been the case.

OP you could perhaps dial it back a little and focus more on positive role models than on the negative. Make sure he has a therapist who does not affirm, allow him long hair and clothes, keep him as physically active as you can and as far away from the internet and from people who affirm him as you can. Do push the line that if he buys and takes drugs he doesnt know what he is getting and that the people selling them dont care about him.

Our food, water, personal care products, cleaning products, basically everything we consume has hormone disrupting chemicals & plastics in them. That’s why children are having gender dismorphia or genuine gender disruption. It’s going to become more & more common in the future in our western world.

I suppose you have the beginning of some kind of scientific evidence to support this extraordinary claim?

Why do these hormone disrupting chemicals disproportionately affect vulnerable kids with autism or childhood trauma?

Don't be silly.

smart phones and the use of sites like reddit, discord and others seem to figure prominently in this fairly recent explosion of trans kids. Helen Joyce has written in detail about this. Often it’s autistic children, struggling with their identity, who are attracted to the trans tribes.

Affirming it blindly, as you suggest, is akin to supporting the abuse and mistreatment of children. They’re not old enough to make irreversible life long changes to their bodies and minds.

If an anorexic 13 year old girl insisted she was too fat, would we affirm or push back? If a teenager wanted to get pregnant and become a Mother at 14, would we affirm or push back? Trans isn’t a neutral identity. Being gay is totally neutral and has no impact on the lifelong health of the gay man/woman. Being trans is completely different and only adults and preferably those over the age of 25 who’ve developed fully, should be able to take medications/surgeries for it and only then after extensive exploratory therapies, which are currently hard to attain.

Our food, water, personal care products, cleaning products, basically everything we consume has hormone disrupting chemicals & plastics in them. That’s why children are having gender dismorphia or genuine gender disruption. It’s going to become more & more common in the future in our western world. What I’m saying is that it’s futile to try & fight it. Tell your child that he can make any choices that he needs to & that you will support him. I’m sorry to say that’s your only option or risk losing your beloved child. As parents we have to put our shame, embarrassment or disappointment to one side & realist that our child’s sanity & wellbeing has to come before all else. I wish you strength in getting through this difficult time.

Many, many people fall for online grooming and scams. Think of all the people who have been catfished into sending their life savings to people who they think are going to marry them. This shit is extremely prevalent and extremely easy to fall for if you are not vigilant and don't know what to look for. Your son is young and particularly vulnerable.

Your son has been told that because he hates his body and has mental health issues, he must be trans. He has then also been told that the only way he can feel better is if he transitions. He has likely been told that not only will hormones make him feel better, he needs to start taking them as soon as possible. That people who want to restrict his access to these are evil and don't have his best interests in mind and that he needs to hide this from you as you won't be supportive. He will read that ordering them and injecting himself is safe, that he just needs to follow instructions and be careful.

He needs to know that he is looking at doing something extremely silly. He needs to know not to believe everything that he reads online and that people who do not know him do not have his best interests at heart, especially if they are trying to sell him something. He needs to know that cross sex hormones come with serious risks and side effects, and for oestrogen, one of those possible side effects is anxiety and depression, so it could actually make him feel worse. And if he tries to argue that it's safe, point out that any online service which sells extremely powerful drugs to a 13 year old without parental knowledge or consent is literally a shady drug dealer who cannot be trusted and not any sort of reputable service at all. If they're willing to sell a kid drugs, they're certainly capable of selling any old crap and telling you that it's drugs. They're certainly also capable of going on Reddit, posing as satisfied customers and telling people to use them. "It is not safe and you cannot trust what you read on the internet" has to be the message he is getting.

This thread is for OP to ask for support. It is not for OP to have to tiptoe around the feelings of those who have a different ideology - they don’t have to read this if they can’t cope with different opinions, or with realising that not everyone believes a child should be allowed to take opposite sex hormones in a misguided attempt to change sex.

No. Transactivism is destroying children and young people. It is not remotely respectful.

Transactivism includes the injunctions to ordinary people to not to raise any objection anything or else it is disrespectful transphobia. Meanwhile, in the silence, the monster devours more victims.

I agree this is a space to share concerns but some of the language could maybe be more considerate I felt, I’m not saying the OP shouldn’t share their beliefs but you can hold beliefs and still be respectful of others.

@Lasaraha I disagree that it is the OP’s responsibility on this thread to protect other people who might read her posts by gagging herself. This anonymous space is for her to express her concerns and ask for advice.

I am not someone who is embedded in the trans community, im a psychologist who works with children.

I have no idea about what the ideologies of the trans community are and whether being a trans person is a choice or whether it’s something someone feels born in to, but what I do know is that supportive parenting is the best approach to protect children from trauma.

I wasn’t criticising you in my post but I was suggesting that you might want to think about how hard you are pushing the anti trans in your posts because there may well be people reading who are deeply, deeply hurt by what you’re writing, which I’m sure you don’t intend on others, and I am curious about how much of that your child is absorbing, I wasn’t talking about you feeling shame - but that your child might feel very shamed if you put these ideas on him and then he continues to go down the route of transitioning as he gets older. And obviously as a parent who wants to protect their child from mental health difficulties and trauma I would be assuming that you would want to avoid that. What you’re doing now clearly isn’t working if your child is now secretly trying to learn more about HRT, so maybe you need to change your approach.

OP here is some advice ( my bolding) from the top Finnish specialist, Dr Kaltiala, in pediatric psychiatry and gender studies,
about trying to remain neutral:

Kaltiala emphasized that it is “important to accept [children] as they are,” but this means neither pressuring a child to conform to behaviors traditionally associated with the child’s sex nor “negating the body” by confirming that the child’s gender self-identification is real. “In either case,” said the psychiatrist, “the child gets a message that there is something wrong with him or her.” Evidence from a combined 12 studies to date demonstrates that when children with cross-gender or gender variant behavior are left to develop naturally, the vast majority—“four out of five,” according to Kaltiala—come to terms with their bodies and learn to accept their sex. When they are socially transitioned, virtually none do.
www.tabletmag.com/sections/science/articles/finland-youth-gender-medicine

Hi Camille, also in Germany but didn't see this thread when you first started it. In case you're not aware, there's a fairly new support group for parents of gender questioning kids like your son who might he able to point you to more local resources.
https://transteens-sorge-berechtigt.net/

Best of luck and I'll be watching this space. Your son's lucky to have you.